David Hume: Metaphysics and Language (original) (raw)
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Hume's Metaphysics and Critique of Metaphysics
Proceedings of The 48th Annual Hume Society Conference, 2022
This essay explores the sense in which Hume is both a metaphysician and a critic of metaphysics. My interpretation is built on the premise that there is a legitimate form of metaphysics that is used to criticize illegitimate form of metaphysics. Although Hume's texts do not reveal us an explicit definition of metaphysics, this premise is reflected most clearly in one sentence of the first Enquiry (1.12, SBN 12-3): we "must cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy the false and adulterate." I argue that Hume has a modal metaphysics that outlines what is possible and what impossible. Hume may be reasonably interpreted as thinking that certain things are metaphysically possible/impossible, not only what we humans can conceptualize or fail to conceptualize. Metaphysics does not however convey any actual information about the world. This can only be achieved empirically. We can, based on a priori reasoning concerning relations of ideas, comprehend the modal structure of the world, but not anything actual about it. The essay concludes that positive metaphysics and critique of metaphysics coexist in Hume's thought.
Early Responses to Hume's Metaphysics and Epistemology, Part 2
This PDF file is part of a 10 Volume series titled "Early Responses to Hume." The printed version of the 10-volume set is under copyright by the original publisher. The electronic version is under copyright by the author, James Fieser, and is available under Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND). The individual volumes are these: Vol. 1: Early Responses to Hume’s Moral Theory Vol. 2: Early Responses to Hume's Essays Vols. 3 and 4: Early Responses to Hume's Metaphysical and Epistemological Writings Vols. 5 and 6: Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion Vols. 7 and 8: Early Responses to Hume’s History of England Vols. 9 and 10: Early Hume’s Life and Reputation, with Bibliography of Early Responses to Hume and Indexes to all 10 volumes.
Early Responses to Hume's Metaphysics and Epistemology, Part 1
This PDF file is part of a 10 Volume series titled "Early Responses to Hume." The printed version of the 10-volume set is under copyright by the original publisher. The electronic version is under copyright by the author, James Fieser, and is available under Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND). The individual volumes are these: Vol. 1: Early Responses to Hume’s Moral Theory Vol. 2: Early Responses to Hume's Essays Vols. 3 and 4: Early Responses to Hume's Metaphysical and Epistemological Writings Vols. 5 and 6: Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion Vols. 7 and 8: Early Responses to Hume’s History of England Vols. 9 and 10: Early Hume’s Life and Reputation, with Bibliography of Early Responses to Hume and Indexes to all 10 volumes.
Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics
Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics, 1998
HUME'S EPISTEMOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS "This is an excellent book. Dicker concentrates squarely on Hume's central arguments, usefully assessing them as contributions to contemporary philosophical debates. He also pays scrupulous attention to the texts, taking account of recent Hume scholarship but remaining attentive to the needs of inexperienced students." Professor Gary Iseminger Carleton College Many of the current philosophical problems over meaning, knowledge, causality, and sense perception can be traced to David Hume's writings in his Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction provides a clear, concise, and accessible guide to the key themes in Hume's philosophy Issues discussed include Hume's argument that there can be no purely rational demonstration of anything's existence, so that God cannot be proven to exist; that all our scientific knowledge rests on inferences from past experiences that cannot be rationally justified; and that we cannot talk of causality apart from natural science. Georges Dicker reveals the contemporary significance of these problems by clearly and sharply analyzing Hume's reasoning. Throughout, Hume's arguments are also placed against a historical background providing us with essential insight into his criticisms of rationalism and his central place as a founder of empiricism. Key features of the book also include discussion of Kant's responses to Hume and consideration of more recent responses to Hume's philosophy, allowing the full significance of his thought for contemporary philosophy to emerge. Accessible to anyone coming to Hume's philosophy for the first time, Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction provides an ideal guide to the main themes in his writing.
David Hume, the Caliph Omar and the burning issue of metaphysics
Cambridge Literary Review, 2010
This essay aims at solving a minor puzzle in the interpretation of David Hume’s Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748). Its object is no more than an anecdote, but it involves a more general and ambitious suggestion about a possible way of handling meaning in past philosophical texts. (First published in Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 11 (1996), 49–58 )
David Hume and so-called "New Hume"
Most of us perceive Hume as a sceptic regarding objective existence of causal powers or a necessary connexion between cause and effect, as well as a sceptic about objective existence of any secret powers of nature. However, in recent decades, there are many articles and books that with this traditional interpretation diverge. These interpreters, including in particular Galen Strawson, John P. Wright, Peter Kail and to some extent also Simon Blackburn, denote Hume a realist regarding causal powers in nature, so-called capital-C Causes. This new interpretation is being called The New Hume Debate, according to the book, which maps fundamental articles of this debate. The aim of this paper is not only to provide a general characteristic of this new interpretation and its main arguments, but especially to highlight some problems which the new interpretation has to face.
The Cambridge Companion to Hume (review)
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1995
This excellent anthology, which has already emerged as an oft-cited source in Hume scholarship, is a first rate collection of essays. With certainty that the community of Hume scholars are already engaged in discussion of the particular points of the individual essays, this review provides an overview of the collection and its value for a broad audience. The Cambridge Companion to
Sképsis: Revista de Filosofia,, 2023
Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy is a collection of essays that are all concerned with major figures and topics in the early modern philosophy. Most of the essays are concerned, more specifically, with the philosophy of David Hume (1711-1776). The sixteen essays included in this collection are divided into five parts. These parts are arranged under the headings of: (1) Metaphysics and Epistemology; (2) Free Will and Moral Luck; (3) Ethics, Virtue and Optimism; (4) Skepticism, Religion and Atheism; and (5) Irreligion and the Unity of Hume’s Thought. A particularly important theme running through many of these essays is the subject of Hume’s irreligious aims and intentions. The fifth and final part of the collection is devoted to an articulation and defence of this specific understanding of Hume’s philosophical thought. Precis of Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy. Book Symposium: Paul Russell, Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). Sképsis: Revista de Filosofia, 14. 26: 71-73 . With replies to critics: Peter Fosl (pp. 77-95), Claude Gautier (pp. 96-111) , and Todd Ryan (pp.112-122).
The Reception of Hume in Romance Languages: French and Portuguese
Blucher Philosophy Proceedings
Indeed, the most of myths about Hume's philosophy rest on the precarious term empiricist. J. P. Monteiro, impeaching this conception, had proposed deep revisions in interpretations of Hume's philosophy, such as the rebuttal of any Humean cognitive associationism. Gilles Deleuze, on the other hand, had stated that causal inferences play a crucial role for the constitution of human nature in Hume's thought. In line with Deleuze, but far from Monteiro's interpretation, Gerard Lebrun depicted Hume as a free spirit and the most ingenuous sceptic. This text, which strictly handled with Portuguese and French commentators, is the first one of a series of texts that I intend to release in order to spread into English key commentaries about Hume's philosophy published in Romance languages. This paper, as well as some other ones that are coming, aimed at shedding light on the manner as Hume's philosophy was undertaken in Romance languages. In view of this, it was taken-as this text main base-the aforementioned Romance commentators, as I named the group of Hume's commentators who had written in Romance languages.